


All I Want For Christmas

by unbecomings



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Christmas, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21943357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbecomings/pseuds/unbecomings
Summary: Lindsey moves to DC after a bad breakup and tries to avoid the Christmas spirit, but the Christmas spirit finds her anyway.
Relationships: Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 16
Kudos: 119





	All I Want For Christmas

Lindsey is doing her best to ignore Christmas. 

It’s basically impossible to do. She can’t avoid the National Mall because she works right next to it and she passes at least three Christmas trees on her way to work. She always has her headphones in but headphones only control what she hears, not what she sees, and there are too many flashing lights for her to miss all of them. Even in her own apartment, completely undecorated and nearly bare, she’s bombarded by commercials about Christmas gifts she hasn’t bought and families spending time together, the way hers won’t.

Well, they will, just without her. And she doesn’t get to be upset about it when she chose it, when the idea of going back to Denver makes her feel even worse than Christmas alone. The thing is, she’s still upset. No amount of rationalizing it changes how she feels.

She feels like staying in bed all day. Instead she gets up and drags herself to her new job, where she knows nobody, in a city that she knows will never feel like home. 

-

Lindsey doesn’t want to rely on Rose. She definitely doesn’t want Rose to know that she’s the only person Lindsey knows in DC, but she should have known better all along, because Rose knows _everything_, and always has. It’s why they became friends in the first place--Rose knew the answers to their astronomy exams and took pity on Lindsey who just needed to pass the class to stay on the soccer team. She shouldn’t be surprised when she meets up with Rose at a bar in Georgetown and Rose sees right through her immediately.

“You’re lonely,” Rose says, and Lindsey chokes on her martini.

“Jesus,” Lindsey says, “let me eat an appetizer or something first.”

“It’s not an accusation,” Rose says, “I’m just saying, it’s a new city, right?”

“I have friends here,” Lindsey says defensively, folding her hands in her lap. Rose raises an eyebrow and tosses her braid over her shoulder. There’s a guy at the end of the bar that’s watching them, and Lindsey wonders if he can tell that Rose would eat him alive.

“You have me,” Rose says, “name another. The Abe in the Lincoln Memorial doesn’t count.”

“I just got here,” Lindsey says, “my coworkers are nice, I’ll make friends with them.”

“I’m not trying to make fun of you,” Rose says, and her voice has softened enough to startle Lindsey more than she’d like to admit, “I’m inviting you to my Christmas party. Because you’re lonely. And we can fix that.”

“Weird way to invite someone to something,” Lindsey mumbles, but her face is warm at the idea of being invited anywhere. It’s the first time she can remember in years that she’s been invited somewhere without Russell attached as a caveat, the first time she’s been invited anywhere in years for any reason other than because someone wanted Russell somewhere and he wanted her on his arm.

It feels good. Almost as good as the martini.

“Okay,” she agrees, “but not if I have to dress up.”

-

Lindsey spends her time on the bus ignoring everything by sitting on her phone. Three days before Rose’s Christmas party, that bites her in the ass.

She’d forgotten to unfollow Russell on Instagram. She hadn’t logged in for weeks, but Rose sent her a text with a link to an Instagram post of a dog, and Lindsey had to log in to see it, and the first post on her feed is Russell’s. 

With another girl. With _that_ girl. One who looks exactly like Lindsey but younger and thinner and with straighter teeth and better eyebrows. Like he hit reset on their relationship and upgraded to a newer model of Lindsey. Every single comment on their post, posing in front of a Christmas tree in Denver, is positive. As if he never cheated on her, even when she _knows_ that all their friends know he did. She has no idea what he could have told them to get them to side with him, and trying to imagine it makes her feel so sick she has to turn her phone off completely for the rest of the day.

She has not made friends with her coworkers. None of them really talk to each other. They’re too busy with their computers and the books and the documents to look up and even make eye contact, and she feels invisible. The worst part is, being invisible feels preferable to what she felt in Denver, in her own hometown, and it feels like that embarrassment will never go away.

Denver belongs to him now. She’s not sure what belongs to her.

-

It takes her thirty minutes to pick an outfit for Rose’s party. She applied and takes off her makeup twice before she settles on some neutral eyeshadow and lip gloss. Normally she would try harder for Russell, but Russell isn’t here and she’s tired and she doesn’t _want_ to look like his new girlfriend. She wants to look like herself. She doesn’t feel quite right in her dark green blouse and gray jeans, but she’s pretty sure she’s going to feel like that in anything she wears. She tries not to look too closely at her reflection in the hall mirror when she heads for the door, tucking a bottle of white wine under her arm that she picked up on the way home. 

Their senior year, Rose insisted she was adult enough to drink wine and it was the only alcohol any of them had in the dorm. Lindsey has brought her a similar, more grown-up version, and when Rose opens the door and she hands it over, she can tell that Rose remembers too. 

“Hi. Oh shit,” Rose laughs, “we thought we were cool.”

“Hi,” Lindsey says, leaning down when Rose wraps an arm around her shoulders to hug her, “_you_ thought you were cool. I never thought I was cool.”

“Good,” Rose says, “you’re not. Come meet my friends.”

Lindsey loses track of names immediately. They all seem nice, though they all also seem like they know each other. She settles into a corner of Rose’s couch and takes a breath and some spiked eggnog.

Rose’s apartment is cute. It looks like an adult lives there. The furniture is complementary and the Christmas decorations are tasteful, and it’s sparkling clean even though a luxuriously fluffy cat is lounging by one of the windows. Lindsey scoots closer to it, holding out her hand, palm down. It gives her a disdainful look, swishes its tail, and looks back out the window. Wounded, Lindsey clasps her hands in her lap and then unclasps them when she realizes she probably looks like a PTA mom.

Lindsey gets roped into a polite conversation about work with a few people and it helps her relax, that plus the eggnog which is definitely stronger than she expected. Tall blonde Sam, taller than her, even, and her husband Pat who seems like the nicest guy in the world. Andi, who works on the other side of the Mall. All their jobs sound more interesting than Lindsey’s, but when Lindsey tells them about the National Archives they all think she’s some kind of genius. She disagrees but it’s nice to feel good about herself regardless, even if she thinks it’s because they don’t quite understand what it is she does.

-

Steadily the room gets warmer and they all get a little tipsier. The music is louder now and Rose is shouting something about karaoke at the front of the living room.

“Oh no,” Andi laughs, “don’t make eye contact.”

Rose stands on top of a footstool with her phone, connected to the Bluetooth speaker. At first nobody moves, but then a girl hip-checks her off of the stool and replaces her. She’s taller than Rose but not much, with a million freckles and a squinty smile like she uses it a lot. And she’s _loud_, louder than Rose even, getting everyone’s attention all at once.

“I cannot sing,” she says, “so cover your ears.”

Mariah Carey’s voice filters through the speakers and is met with a varying chorus of cheers and groans. The girl on the footstool flourishes with her arms and begins.

_I don’t want a lot for Christmas  
There is just one thing I need_

She’s so expressive, so dramatic, that she has everyone’s attention. Lindsey can’t even imagine being that confident. She’s way too aware of herself, what she looks like and sounds like and what everyone thinks of her. Nobody’s making fun of this girl, though. How could they? She’s funny, and her ugly Christmas sweater is just ugly enough to be cute, with an image of some tacos and avocados and the words ‘LET’S TACO BOUT THE HOLIDAYS’ on the front.

_ I don’t care about the presents  
Underneath the Christmas tree_

“Yeah, Em!” Sam calls out from the other end of the couch. Pat is laughing, a full, deep belly laugh that makes Lindsey smile before she even realizes it. 

_ I just want you for my own  
More than you could ever know  
Make my wish come true, oh  
All I want for Christmas is you_

She starts to shimmy along with the jingle bells when they come in. People around the room start clapping and laughing. 

“She’s a nutjob,” Andi laughs, and Sam agrees, but they’re saying it so fondly, and Lindsey is mesmerized. There’s nothing obnoxious about the way this girl has everyone listening to her. Instead it’s like, for the first time all night, everyone’s on the same page. 

Instead of singing, when the vocals come back in the girl grabs the hem of her sweater and starts to pull it up teasingly. The crowd erupts into laughs and cheers, and when Lindsey looks at Rose, she’s covering her eyes and laughing too. 

Lindsey can’t believe this girl is really going to take off her clothes. She’s exposed a little strip of skin above the hem of her jeans, but when she keeps pulling the sweater up she reveals a tank top underneath and Lindsey breathes a sigh of relief that she can’t quite explain. The girl keeps gyrating and pulling the sweater up and then she stops with her arms half above her head and struggles.

“Oh no,” Pat says, but nobody gets up to help her, they’re all just laughing. Lindsey can’t tell if she’s actually having trouble or if it’s just a bit, until she realizes the sweater is stuck on the girl’s messy blonde bun. She’s only just realized how dangerous it is when the girl stumbles forward off of the footstool and Rose lunges to catch her. She pulls her sweater back down and laughs and bows, and everyone claps and laughs with her, and Lindsey feels like she’s coming out of a fever dream.

-

Lindsey goes into the kitchen to forage among the finger food, and when she gets back her spot on the couch has shrunk. Next to her, in the empty space she’d left tactfully between herself and Andi, is the girl who had given the failed striptease. She’s laughing at something Andi said, her nose crinkled up and her eyes nearly closed, and Lindsey hesitates. She doesn’t want to interrupt them, and something about sitting that close makes her nervous even hypothetically. 

When the girl catches her eye, her laugh dies, but her smile doesn’t. 

“Sorry,” she says, “I took your spot, huh?”

“We can fit,” Andi says, scooting into Sam’s side, and now Lindsey has to take a seat or she might offend them. 

She fits, just barely, between the girl and the arm of the couch. There’s not quite enough room, and even though they’re not touching she can feel the heat of the other girl’s leg just inches from hers. 

“Hey,” she says, “I’m Emily.”

She holds out a hand to shake like they’re at a business meeting, not a Christmas party, but Lindsey takes it anyway. She has freckles there, too. 

“Lindsey,” she says. Then she adds, “I’m new in town,” like she’s a fourth-grader instead of twenty-six. 

“Yeah,” Emily says, “Rose told me.”

_Of course she did._

“Oh God,” Lindsey says, “what else did she tell you?”

“You guys were roommates in college,” Emily says, “and you were the star of the soccer team. I was surprised she tolerated a jock for that long, she makes fun of me constantly.”

“She makes fun of me constantly too,” Lindsey assures her, “what kind of, uh, jock are you?”

Emily grins, and Lindsey wonders what it would take to get her to laugh like Andi did before. Then she wonders if she’s had two or three cups of eggnog. 

“I’m a runner,” Emily says, “mostly marathons now, but I ran cross country in college.”

“Of course she makes fun of you,” Lindsey says, “the cross country girls at our school were wild animals.”

Emily nods solemnly, and Lindsey realizes that she’s been smiling for at least a little while, long enough that her face has started to hurt. 

“I’m in rehabilitation,” Emily says, “I think I’ve integrated alright into normal society. Sometimes someone’s running to catch a train and I almost go to trip them when they pass me, but usually I can control myself.”

Lindsey cackles, and when she opens her eyes Emily is smiling again, but something about it is different. She’s looking at Lindsey way more intently than anyone has looked in her in ages, but Lindsey doesn’t feel uncomfortable about it at all. 

“You tripped girls during cross country meets?” Lindsey asks, and Emily winks. 

Talking to Emily is effortless. Over the course of Lindsey’s next—and last—cup of eggnog, somehow Emily gets Lindsey’s story out of her, or at least the highlights. Lowlights, when it comes to Russell and the breakup. She also manages to pick up a few tidbits about Emily, like the fact that she’s from the south and she has a twin with almost the exact same name. 

“Do you think Rose would notice if I snagged one of these wreaths?” Emily says, pointing to one by the window, “there’s, like, five of them.”

“Definitely,” Lindsey says, “why would you even want to?”

“For my car,” Emily says, dead seriously, “it’s the only inch of my life that’s not decorated yet.”

“Please tell me you’re not one of those people that puts Christmas decorations on their cars,” Lindsey says, and then she_giggles_. She hasn’t giggled since...high school. At least.

“I’m not,” Emily says, “I just told you my car wasn’t decorated, keep up.”

“There’s no way you get out of here without her seeing you leave with a full wreath,” Lindsey says, “she’s not drunk enough.”

“I could do it,” Emily insists, “but not alone.”

The silence between them is giddy. Lindsey almost bursts into laughter again, but she manages to tamp it down. The party is still going on around them, but people have definitely started to leave.

“You want,” Lindsey says carefully, “me to help you steal a wreath, from Rose’s house, during her Christmas party.”

“Yes,” Emily says.

“Don’t you work with her?” Lindsey says, “won’t she see the wreath on your car on Monday?”

“I drive an energy efficient vehicle,” Emily says, “I get to park on the first floor, she has to put her gas-guzzler higher up in the parking deck, she won’t notice a thing.”

Lindsey tries to imagine Emily driving something like a Nissan Leaf and starts laughing again. When Emily frowns at her she forces herself to be serious again.

“Okay,” she says, leaning precariously into Emily’s space, “so what’s the plan?”

-

Lindsey manages to distract Rose just long enough for Emily to remove a wreath. She stuffs it into a garbage bag, and from over Rose’s shoulder, she salutes before she slips out the door. Lindsey almost laughs again, but she holds it together just long enough for her to finish her conversation with Rose, who doesn’t notice the wreath right away. She’s too busy hosting.

The party doesn’t feel the same with Emily gone. Lindsey only lasts another fifteen minutes before she leaves, too, splurging on an Uber so she can sit quietly with her headphones in for less time. Somehow she knows that this feeling is fleeting, whatever it is. She holds it in her chest and puts herself to bed as soon as she gets home, which feels a little bit like cupping her hands around a candle to keep it lit.

When she wakes up the whole night feels like a figment of her imagination.

-

**maybe: Emily** hey it’s emily of mariah carey striptease fame

**Lindsey**: oh hey   
**Lindsey**: did you steal my number like you stole that wreath?

**Emily (Wreath Thief)**: ive never stolen anything in my life how dare you  
**Emily (Wreath Thief)**: but no i asked rose for it like a normal person 

**Lindsey**: so how’s the wreath working out?

**Emily (Wreath Thief)**: great thanks for asking   
**Emily (Wreath Thief)**: think i need another for the back though. you have any i could borrow?

**Lindsey**: wreaths? no  
**Lindsey**: i don’t have Christmas decorations

**Emily (Wreath Thief)**: none??? like at all??  
**Emily (Wreath Thief)**: okay scrooge whats your address 

-

Lindsey’s not really sure why she even gives Emily her address. They’ve met once and it ended with Emily taking something from Rose’s house. And yet—it’s not like Lindsey has anything worth stealing. And if Emily tried to mug her or something, Lindsey could totally take her, Emily is a few inches shorter and way smaller than her. So what’s the worst that could happen?

Emily rolls through after work. It’s a Tuesday night. She shows up at Lindsey’s door with a bag of tinsel and a half-used pine tree candle. 

“I can’t stay,” she says, “I gotta get home, but I wanted to drop this off first. Better than nothing, right?”

She’s bright pink, like she sprinted up the two flights of stairs to Lindsey’s apartment. It’s raining, and a spray of thin blonde flyaway hairs sticks out from under the hood of her blue rain jacket, which is still up. 

“Right,” Lindsey says, taking the bag, “thanks.”

Emily smiles, then disappears. Lindsey has no idea where to even start with the tinsel, so she doesn’t bother. 

-

She thinks about Emily a lot. 

Honestly, Emily is _weird_. Objectively, from the first second Lindsey saw her, weird. But she’s not actually, not really. She’s funny and kind and for some reason she’s very determined to bring Christmas cheer to Lindsey’s life. Maybe she’s doing this with other people, too, Lindsey doesn’t want to assume there’s something special about her. 

She realizes by Thursday that she’s been thinking about the whole thing in terms of whether or not Emily is trying to decorate other girls’ houses, and that’s when it finally clicks to her that she has a crush. After Russell she thought that would be impossible, but Emily is the exact opposite of everything Russell is. She never takes herself seriously, he takes himself terminally seriously. She doesn’t care what people think of her; all Russell has ever cared about is his image. Lindsey doesn’t even know if Emily is attracted to her at all, but if she was, Lindsey feels sure Emily wouldn’t be gross about it. 

So maybe she wants Emily to be flirting with her. Maybe because Emily is funny and warm and bright Lindsey wants to be wooed by her. 

She’s never been wooed before. 

Fantasizing about Emily feels a little gross but not gross enough to stop Lindsey. She feels guilty, but she still spends her downtime at work imagining what it might be like to spend time alone with Emily. What it might be like to make her laugh sober. What it might be like to kiss her. 

The last thought makes her stomach flip like she’s going down the hill of a rollercoaster and she stops herself there, feeling her face grow hot as she buries herself back in her work, with renewed interest in spreadsheets she didn’t care about all day. 

As if summoned, Emily texts her at lunch.

**Emily (Wreath Thief)**: hey i found something else to spruce up your apartment for the holiday

**Lindsey**: should i be offended??

**Emily (Wreath Thief)**: do you want it or not?

**Lindsey**: sure. i’ll be home by seven

**Emily (Wreath Thief):** great it’s a date!

-

Lindsey puts on lip gloss when she gets home. 

Emily shows up with her scarf askew and her beanie half falling off her head. Her face is red again, and she’s holding a little Christmas tree in one hand. It looks like the Charlie Brown tree, but it’s cute even if it’s scrawny and barely two feet tall. 

“Oh, I get it,” Lindsey says, “spruce.”

“No, what’s wrong with you? It’s a pine tree,” Emily says, dead seriously. Lindsey feels dumb until Emily’s face splits into a grin. 

“You can come in,” Lindsey says, holding the door open.

“Nah, I can't,” Emily says, “I gotta run.”

Lindsey feels stupid. Emily has obviously been joking when she said ‘it’s a date,’ and Lindsey, so desperate for attention from someone nice, had run with it. She can feel herself turning pink and she hates that Emily notices it, too. 

“Hey,” Emily says, “what are you doing Saturday?”

“Nothing,” Lindsey says.

“I can come help decorate,” Emily says, “Christmas is Sunday, you gotta get it done before Saint Nick comes around.”

“If you want,” Lindsey says, and when Emily gives her a funny look, Lindsey corrects herself, feeling her palms start to sweat. “I’d like that,” she chokes out, and Emily smiles at her.

It’s a different smile than before. No teeth, no crinkly eyes—it’s a soft smile, and it makes Lindsey’s heart melt. Because the first thing she needs to do in DC is get her heart broken again. Obviously. 

“Okay,” Emily says, “I’ll text you.” 

-

She doesn’t hear from Emily on Friday. On Saturday she wakes up to a text from Emily asking for a time, and Lindsey gives it, and spends the rest of the day being nervous and trying to distract herself. She doesn’t know what they’re doing, or whether she should be expecting anything. She hasn’t kissed a girl since before she started dating Russell and she doesn’t remember how she’s supposed to tell if she’s the one who should be making a move.

Plus that was drunk at a party and this is completely different. She doesn’t want to kiss Emily like she kissed that girl at that party.

When Emily shows up, Lindsey has been sitting nervously on the couch for a half an hour, twisting her hands in her lap. When she opens the door and Emily finally steps inside, she can feel the way her shoulders are tense and up by her shoulders. Emily is wearing a coat over a soft gray sweater that makes her freckles stand out against her face and neck. She’s holding a wreath in one hand.

“Where did you park?” Lindsey asks, and Emily strides over to the window like she’s been there a million times, pointing until Lindsey can make out a bicycle locked to the lamppost in front of her apartment.

“Energy efficient,” she says, and Lindsey frowns.

“You had a wreath strapped to the front of your bike all week?” she asks, and Emily raises an eyebrow at her, then holds the wreath out for Lindsey to take.

It’s the wreath from Rose’s place.

“Isn’t this the wreath you stole?” Lindsey asks, but she takes it anyway, even though she has no idea what to do with it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Emily says, “I got this for you.”

But she winks, and Lindsey blushes, and suddenly it really does feel like a date.

They order a pizza and Emily helps her decorate. She brought a string of colored lights for the sad little tree, and suddenly the tree doesn’t look so sad. Lindsey hangs the tinsel around her mantle and Emily helps her figure out how to get the wreath up on her door.

“Why are you doing this?” Lindsey blurts, as soon as they step back into her apartment. 

“Doing what?” Emily asks, like she doesn’t _know_. And maybe Lindsey doesn’t know Emily that well yet, but she knows enough to know Emily just wants to hear her say it.

“All this,” Lindsey gestures, “helping me dedecorate. You don’t even know me.”

“Maybe not,” Emily says. They’re standing really close together all of a sudden, and Lindsey’s having a hard time getting air into her lungs. Emily is short enough that Lindsey has to tip her head down to look directly into Emily’s face like this, and when she does her stomach does that thing again. She can feel the adrenaline creeping up the backs of her hands into her arms, can feel every hair on her body standing on end, can feel her heart rate pick up with every second that nobody speaks.

“Maybe not,” Emily repeats, “but I want to.”

Her eyes drop to Lindsey’s lips. Lindsey’s stomach drops out of her body. She knows immediately that this is the moment where she’s supposed to make a move. In her mind she can imagine herself reaching for Emily, cupping Emily’s face in one hand and leaning down to kiss her with purpose and intent. In real life she blinks and blushes and says nothing and does nothing, and Emily’s eyes flick back up to hers, and Emily steps away.

“I have one more thing, I almost forgot,” Emily is saying, but Lindsey is barely paying attention. She’s too busy beating herself up, and simultaneously trying to understand how she even _got_ here, in an apartment in DC with this girl, this girl who likes her, who’s cute and smart and funny beyond Lindsey’s wildest dreams.

She’s so wrapped up in hating herself that she’s shocked when Emily turns back around, holding a sprig of mistletoe.

“It’s not actually mistletoe,” she says, “it’s holly. But--fun fact--most of what people hang up and call mistletoe isn’t actually mistletoe. You know how to tell them apart?”

Emily is babbling. It’s cute, but it also knocks Lindsey right back onto her ass to even consider that Emily is nervous enough around her to be babbling. 

“Um,” Lindsey says, her mind racing, “no?”

“Mistletoe has round leaves, holly has pointy leaves. So this is holly, not misteltoe, but--” 

“Give me that,” Lindsey breaks in. Some foreign part of her brain has taken over. The part that bought her ticket to DC. The part that signed the lease for this apartment. The part that put in her two weeks notice at her job in Denver. Emily is blushing at the top of her cheekbones when she hands the mistletoe over, and Lindsey lets herself notice those cheekbones, lets herself notice the strong line of Emily’s jaw, how soft her hair looks up in its messy bun.

She takes the mistletoe and hangs it by its loop on the chandelier in her entryway. It dangles above them and Emily keeps blushing.

“I know it’s not really mistletoe,” Lindsey says, “but it feels like we should probably kiss anyway.”

She can’t believe herself. But she feels _good_ about it. She feels good about herself the way she did when she left Denver and Russell, the way that she felt in the air somewhere above Missouri.

“Probably,” Emily croaks, and Lindsey still can’t believe Emily could possibly be this nervous around her. Emily takes a few steps closer, so that they’re standing toe-to-toe again. This time when her eyes drop to Lindsey’s lips, Emily also tilts her head up. Her mouth is just slightly open and Lindsey is completely sure she’s never wanted to kiss anyone so badly in her life. She’s not going to blow her second chance. She reaches blindly for Emily and realizes they’ve never touched before, because she would remember it if they had. It takes her a second but their fingers thread together and Lindsey closes her eyes and leans in.

It’s the perfect first kiss. Emily’s lips are so soft, and she squeezes Lindsey’s fingers and kisses back, and even though it only lasts a second it feels like it’s been years when Lindsey opens her eyes again.

“I have a confession to make,” Emily says. Her eyes are still closed, and Lindsey can see the faintest sheen of her own lip gloss on Emily’s lips. 

“Now?” Lindsey asks, and Emily opens her eyes. When she focuses them on Lindsey’s, Lindsey can’t help but smile at her, and after a second Emily smiles back. The nervousness is gone, replaced by the easy confidence Emily’s always had before, but this time there’s depth to it. This time Lindsey knows how badly Emily wants to kiss her, and it makes the joking sweeter.

“I stole that wreath from Rose.”

-

Lindsey spends twenty minutes trying to decide what to wear to Rose’s New Years party. Ultimately she knows that what she’s nervous about isn’t whether the brown or black boots are a better fit for the rest of her outfit, but having control over that helps.

What helps more is when Emily shows up. She looks cold. Her face is red lie it always is when she gets to the door, and Lindsey cups it in her hands, then rubs her hands along Emily’s arms over her jacket.

“Did you bike here?” she asks, “it’s so cold!”

“Committed to the environment,” Emily says, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve, “and to my great gas mileage.”

Lindsey gets them an Uber.

In the backseat, on the way there, Emily reaches for her hand, and Lindsey holds Emily’s in both of her own. 

“Please don’t steal anything from Rose’s tonight,” Lindsey says, and Emily grins at her.

“It was a long con to get you to date me,” Emily says, “I don’t need to steal anything this time, I already stole your heart.”

“I hate you,” Lindsey laughs, but she’s still holding Emily’s hand and they both know she doesn’t mean it.

-

The look on Rose’s face when they walk in her door holding hands is priceless.

Lindsey is expecting surprise, but what she gets instead is better. It’s a combination of exasperation and glee that makes her smile so wide that it hurts, and when she glances at Emily she sees that Emily’s smile matches her own.

“Oh, good,” she says, ushering them inside the apartment, “you figured it out.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Emily wheezes.

“You think I didn’t notice a whole wreath go missing?” Rose asks, “if you didn’t figure it out I was gonna ask for my wreath back, it was like $29.99.”

To Lindsey she adds, wriggling her eyebrows, “good thing your love is priceless.”


End file.
